


take the sky

by lyeon



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Starship Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7638931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyeon/pseuds/lyeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I didn’t mean to disturb,” the man says. “I’ll just be going—”</p><p>“No, hey. No, it’s fine. Stay.”</p><p>The stranger looks hesitant, but he concedes. Yunho understands. It’s hard to walk away from filaments of the galaxy unraveling before your eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take the sky

**Author's Note:**

> written for smtheficathon 2015

1.

“I’m sorry, hyung. I just can’t do it anymore.”

It’s not like Yunho hadn’t been expecting it, but he’d hoped—never mind.

 

2.

“Sorry,” Joonmyun says, the first time they meet. “The door was open and I just pushed it—”

The gallery is dark, but the reflected light is bright enough for Yunho to make out the surprise on the stranger's face. He’s shorter and younger than Yunho, wearing a sweatshirt that’s too big for him with a garish pair of green and yellow slippers. Yunho is suddenly aware again of the stiff collar and pressed pleats of the uniform he hadn’t gotten round to taking off.

Yunho came straight down to the starboard gallery after finishing his alpha shift, avoiding Changmin’s attempt to intercept him on the way down. It isn’t that Minseok is a poor fit for the crew, far from it. He’s fine. Yunho just needs more time.

Officially the viewing gallery is closed to visitors, passengers having amassed there the previous day to see the technical spectacle of the _Cassiopeia_ ’s departure. But of course Yunho still has access, although he thought he’d be alone watching the constellations until the stranger had stumbled in, lost and apologetic.

“I didn’t mean to disturb,” the man says. “I’ll just be going—”

“No, hey. No, it’s fine. Stay.”

The stranger looks hesitant, but he concedes. Yunho understands. It’s hard to walk away from filaments of the galaxy unraveling before your eyes.

“Insomnia, is it?” Yunho asks. “Is this your first time?”

The man nods. “It’s so quiet,” he says. “I didn’t realise it would be so—”

Cold? Empty? The stars are beautiful, Yunho agrees, but the truth of deep space is an unpleasant one. Yunho’s used to people who come on board the _Cassiopeia_ , nursing romantic fantasies of sailing comfortably against a backdrop of constellations in space. They forget that the transport ship’s designated route, a return trip from Mars to Earth and back with sixteen stops in between, takes six months to complete. The passengers get restless when the novelty wears off, complaining about the freeze dried rations, the dry air and the perpetual cold. What did they expect, he wonders.

“My grandmother loved the stars,” the man says suddenly.

His tone, fond and sad, is unexpected. Yunho looks over, but the man is looking down, pulling at a loose thread on his sleeve.

“Did she ever fly out to see them?”

“It was a long time ago, way before anyone could go on a public launch,” he replies. "She kept an old telescope. We’d have to wait for clear skies to use it, and sometimes there wouldn’t be one for an entire week. But on other days there wouldn’t be a cloud for miles and we'd stay outside for the whole night." The stranger shrugs. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot.”

The man isn’t young at all, Yunho realises. His hair, black and cut in thick bangs that fall neatly over his forehead, made him look it. But now Yunho notices the thinness of the skin under the stranger’s eyes, and the lines that form around his mouth when he smiles. The longer the other man talks the more Yunho can see the way he constantly, calmly, readjusts under some unseen weight he’d long grown used to carrying on his back. When he straightens up it’s clear he’s not a young man at all.

“Thanks for letting me in here tonight,” he says. “I hope you won’t get into trouble with the captain for it.”

“The captain?" Yunho asks, a smile dancing across his face. "I’m the captain,” he says, as the man's face lights up in surprise.

 

3.

Yunho doesn’t expect the visitor’s buzzer for the captain’s quarters to go off during the beta shift. It can’t be Minseok, who is completely professional during his shifts but still keeps a respectful distance once they’re off the deck. Both Changmin and Boa wouldn’t bother with the buzzer at all, even though they both know better than to try and confront him like this. So he’s surprised when he opens the door to find a bashful Kim Joonmyun on the other side.

“Hi,” Joonmyun says, “This is an impromptu thing, but I heard we’d be able to see a new nebula tonight and I thought—”

That’s the first time Joonmyun comes intentionally to find him, and the second time they sit together watching the stars. They watch the galaxy spin by thirty eight more times over the next six weeks, until Joonmyun alights on the moon.

 

4.

The transmission starts shakily when Yunho first opens it. There’s something on screen that looks like the left half of Joonmyun's face, darker shapes where his eyes are and the soft outline of his hair glinting in the afternoon light. Yunho hasn’t been in the sun for a while, although he sees it everyday: a steady white burn from lightyears away.

Yunho hadn’t put much stock in Joonmyun’s promise to stay in touch, but this is the ninth video he’s received from him in just as many weeks. “Another one for you, Jung,” Boa said, winking when she’d called him over to the console.

“Hyung—hello? I hope you can hear me.”

The image resolves into Joonmyun, squinting in the frame with his arm outstretched and the sound of the wind rustling across the mic.

“Do you know where this is, hyung? Do you know where I am?”

The camera sweeps across the landscape in front of him, flat sand and an empty beach; water and waves. Then back to Joonmyun’s face, half hidden behind a thickly wrapped scarf.

“It’s Gwangju,” Joonmyun says, trying out the accent. “Daejeon. Do you recognise it? Ah, the birds—”

They squawk behind him, massive grey seagulls swooping in and out of the frame. Joonmyun looks over his shoulder, and doesn't notice when the camera starts to focus on the birds' wings instead of his face.

"I thought the weather would be better,” he says, sheepish.

The camera turns towards to a shot of the beach, a bed of brown pebbles clicking together beneath Joonmyun’s feet. The camera shows him picking up one of the larger ones, fitting it snugly in his palm.

“It's getting cold, I probably shouldn't have worn these—”

The video jerks and Yunho catches a glimpse of familiar yellow and green sandals, before Joonmyun brings the camera back up to his face again, grinning.

“I have a friend, Jongin, I brought him along the last time, do you remember? He laughs at me every time I wear them but Sehun says they’re so uncool that they might be fashionable again, so I could be on to something...”

There’s something welling inside Yunho as he listens to Joonmyun continue talking — about his older brother, his parents, about the kimbap he had for lunch and the spicy stew he’s considering for dinner. His voice washes over Yunho in waves, tangled together with his own memories of the Gwangju winds and the warmth of the winter sun. He hasn't been on Earth in a long time. Perhaps too long, now. Yunho doesn’t even notice his tears until he feels them running down his face.

“You know, every night when it’s dark and the stars start to appear in the sky, I look up and wonder where you are?”

In the video Joonmyun laughs, cheeks flushing.

“Ah, I’m embarrassed. But take care, hyung." He smiles until it looks like his face is going to split apart. “Come home soon.”

 

5.

“There she is,” Yunho says, when the last of the cloud cover is chased away by the wind. The grass tickles his bare calves and his knees knock into Joonmyun’s as they lean into each other, Joonmyun's grandmother's old telescope set up just beside them. She passed away years ago, and left the farm to him.

“There's my Cassiopeia,” Yunho says, pointing at the twinkling the sky.

“She's not yours,” Joonmyun replies, indignant. “Not this one at least. And of course I recognise her.”

“You’d better,” Yunho says as Joonmyun's eyes shine, and he takes his hand in his own.

Ten years ago, Yunho and his crew watched in awe as their ship had made her first approach towards her namesake constellation. Ten years later, he's one of just a handful still on board.

When the others had left, he just carried on, and that was fine.

But now he has Joonmyun. And this is better.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is so cheesy lmao i hope i will stop reuploading old things and actually post something new soon


End file.
